


get a better mirror look a little closer

by opanimeboy



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: 3rd person present tense, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, M/M, character study but barely, hisohoma can be read platonic or romantic the world is ur oyster, i do personally quite like it when they hold hnads, omi citron tenma n winter troupe appear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22671058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opanimeboy/pseuds/opanimeboy
Summary: Homare has a day.___“You are so noisy. What can you be thinking about this time?”A very loaded question.In fiction, Homare would say the moment he’s experiencing is poetic.It’s dark save for the glow of nighttime filtering through their curtained window, and Hisoka’s hair is effervescent.Yet, he is vividly reminded by a life full of failed social aptitude, devoid of empathy and more, and the fact that they’re both grown men who act together for this to lack that sheen.Life without alcohol SOBER, emotions heavy as a RAINCLOUD, both wet and PREVENTABLE.Hm. He’ll chop that one up in the morning after he ignores the question.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 66





	get a better mirror look a little closer

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday, my love. contrary to belief? I love you. you are loved. i love you. i l
> 
> okay. honestly, was having fun writing this and then i reread a story and was like mmm . bad. so.
> 
> it's really angsty! sorry about that! cant stop that introspection turned just plain out Hurt huh @ me.
> 
> hope you can find some enjoyment! i rly like homare. mitsukaranai... kimi no kokoro wa mitsukaranai... :'0
> 
> warning: simple sentences GALORE and then wham a whole ass monologue in one sentence. i am a monster.

Homare drops his teacup in the morning.

Glass on the kitchen tile sounds nothing like wind chimes or an intentional sound.

There's no beauty in it!

He's reminded of when he delved into music, staccato, vibrato, crash symbols.

This just sounds like a teacup breaking, and it is so upsetting it could bring him to tears.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that he overslept, or his inspiration in the recent past had been :repetitive:.

Maybe it has to do with the heat of the drink, painful and too sweet.

Omi stops everything he’s doing despite Homare having caused the issue, and Homare tells him just that.

Some of the kids walk by and Omi shoos them away, and says something that is probably meant to be comforting.

Tsumugi walks by and understands the situation immediately.

He goes to prepare them tea, and Homare prays the next cup will be better.

Despite his large frame and meaty hands, Omi picks up the glass pieces so delicately.

They’re broken already, so he doesn’t understand why he’s showing such care to it.

Not even worth wabi sabi with the price of the cup, given to him by an old friend.

Homare says all of that out loud.

Making a face (Homare doesn’t understand it. It elicits no creativity or elation on his side, only a stomach ache.), Omi finishes cleaning up the mess in silence.

Tsumugi picks up his cup and leaves with a smile (that makes Homare, someone with a high net worth, someone who brings something to someone with the words he strings together, _pathetic_ ).

Once Omi’s swept and cleaned the area, he looks straight at Homare with kind eyes.

The pity lingers in his stomachs, his fingertips, his tongue.

He’s reminded that this big man also sews with precision and speaks with the most gentle voice he’s ever encountered, equal with Tsumugi’s intonation onstage.

His photography captures everything the eye does, and every still sparks inspiration in him.

“It’s still glass even if it’s broken. I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt because of its sharp edges.”

Homare takes a walk in the morning after that fiasco feeling ragged, sipping on cold tea.

* * *

At lunch, Citron talks to him about literature in the garden.

The foreigner is not foreign to the arts in any way, shape, form, and he's magnificently well read.

Tasuku loiters with a script in their circle, but he is absorbed by the words that will flow from him onstage the same way words that rhyme and flow onto Homare’s papers.

Books and stage plays are good, but at the end of the day - poetry is more elegant, more cutting, more up his alley.

He tells him just this, and Citron nods elegantly, cuttingly, but still an enigma.

Citron elects to stay quiet for a moment, and Homare understands art and the importance of well timed silence, but he does not get what is going through his conversation partner’s head.

It makes him uncomposed, itching for a response.

Feedback.

Citron notices and turns towards him fully with a smile.

“I cannot read Japanese poetry too well, but you are beautiful!”

Homare is taken aback and laughs.

Tasuku glances at them and shifts sideways, away from them.

“I’m beautiful? How wonderful! Can you explain what you mean?”

“Intriguing! I like to learn! It is very funfilling!”

“I do not see what you mean? Do you learn a lot from me?”

“Yes! You are very regal and bubble lee, so I would like to be you!”

He is losing Homare very, very quickly, and Homare has no clue if it’s because of the language barrier or not.

“I think one of me is enough, no? My poems are a once in _one_ lifetime thing and I pride myself on my artistry!”

Citron chuckles and nods, but Homare didn’t make a joke.

“You are wonderful! Very intelligent and quirky!”

Homare is concerned that he is being harassed, but Tasuku clears his throat before anything else.

“He’s complimenting you.”

He puts his script down and lightly bumps Homare on his way out.

The nudge makes Homare feel like his soul has been hockeyed out of his body.

Gleeful and so luckily an acceptable type of eccentric, Citron nods and agrees with fervor.

They talk about how Citron’s language learning is going, and how he uses The Modern Prometheus in English, Japanese, and his native language.

A creature made in the image of his awkward, wrong creator only to become the monster he was imagined as.

Not a Greek tragedy, but a tragedy nonetheless.

Homare remembers middle school and just how much he hated writing poem projects on the book.

* * *

Tenma gives him his carrots at dinner. 

It’s actually very amusing just how sick he looks looking at the vegetables.

Odd how such a delightful food, sweet, crunchy, fabulouso! can cause the boy with similar colored hair such illness.

He says that out loud, and Yuki snickers.

Homare is filled with fondness as he looks on as the two bicker for a moment before Tenma turns back to him.

“You should get your eyes checked!”

“Hm? Logically, wouldn’t my eyesight be fantastic? Carrots are good for that, you know!”

Tenma’s face turns as red as a tomato, and Banri is laughing so hard the table is shaking.

Besides him, Azuma places a lovely, manicured hand on Homare’s shoulder.

“Fufu. As cute as he is, let’s not tease him too much today.”

Homare is struck with confusion.

Teasing?

He was being honest throughout the entire exchange.

No amusement or prodding was done by him, so he can't pinpoint when he took it too far.

He looks back at Tenma whose face has cooled, but he recognizes guilt and feels just as out of place as the mystic angel he was casted as.

Maybe something even less holy, something tainted and wrong. 

Tenma looks back at him for a moment before reaching over to the plate he gave Homare and taking it back.

In one swift motion, he shoves a carrot in his mouth, obviously trying not to gag.

The laughing spreads and Homare can feel eyes on his side, the hand having not left his tense shoulders.

It starts to slowly rub a soft circle on his back.

Tenma mumbles an apology but doesn’t look him in the eye.

Homare doesn’t understand what has occurred, or why the gift he was given was revoked, and turns in that night feeling like he did that interaction wrong.

He hurt a loved one again.

* * *

Under the moon, Homare finds no sleep or inspiration.

There aren’t too many stars visible in the city above Mankai Dorm, probably because they wouldn't compare to those who wander here.

He shifts again, and Hisoka mumbles on his bed connected to Homare's.

Ready for a distraction that isn't his thoughts, patronizing and worst of all - bland - he flips onto his arms to look across the bar that separates their heads from bumping.

"What did you say, Hisoka?"

"Stop moving."

It's sighed out which isn't too surprising from someone who uses as much energy as Hisoka, but Homare catches it laced with something.

Every moment that made him itch today returns full force.

Instead of furthering the conversation like he intended, Homare turns onto his back slowly and tries to stay still, staring at the ceiling.

Think only of the ceiling, not a true white, uneven and that god awful popcorn texture, not of his failure at being a person and maneuvering within his own home.

It's silent for a few seconds, enough for Homare to think Hisoka has drifted off back to sleep, until their bed frames creak with Hisoka crawling over.

"W- Hey! Why didn't you just go down your ladder and come back up on mine? Actually, what are you doing? A proposition?!”

“You are so noisy. What can you be thinking about this time?”

A very loaded question.

In fiction, Homare would say the moment he’s experiencing is poetic.

It’s dark save for the glow of nighttime filtering through their curtained window, and Hisoka’s hair is effervescent.

Yet, he is vividly reminded by a life full of failed social aptitude, devoid of empathy and more, and the fact that they’re both grown men who act together for this to lack that sheen.

Life without alcohol SOBER, emotions heavy as a RAINCLOUD, both wet and PREVENTABLE.

Hm. He’ll chop that one up in the morning after he ignores the question.

“I’m surprised you’re awake. Is it because you slept most of the day?”

“Don’t turn this around.”

Hisoka’s stunning amount of astute observation and lack of most social norms somehow lets Homare understand him more than he understands the other Winter Troupe members, but only so much.

The man is comfortable in the now shared bed and pulls Homare into his orbit, under the covers.

It is too hot, but Hisoka is obviously mindful to leave space between them under the blanket.

“Today, Misumi, Muku, and I played with the cats. What did you do today?”

“...nothing much. I stayed home--”

“So you must have been busy all day.”

“Haha! I suppose you’re right.”

It goes quiet again.

They’re not ones to make small talk.

They converse when they need something from each other.

When Homare has something wonderful he’d like to share, or when Hisoka wants to share some marshmallows with him, they have their banter, but Homare doesn’t know just what is wrongif _anything_ this time.

“What did you see today?”

“See?”

“Yeah. Like...snapshots of what you experienced today. ...you can even rhyme if you have to.”

Homare ponders, and he ponders hard.

He saw kindness with Tsumugi and Omi.

He saw Tasuku and Citron try to get on the same wavelength as him.

He saw laughter from the kids and Azuma at the dinner table because of him (and not at him, he realizes).

It twists his stomach thinking about the day, but he finds himself feeling better when he relays just how silly and happy everyone was with him.

Like lightning striking, he feels tension melt into the bed that he sinks into, sleep catching up as he mumbles to his bed partner who whispers back.

“‘nd did you try today?”

“To do what?”

“...be yourself.”

Homare hears this, but he doesn't respond.

Hisoka drapes his arm over Homare as a warning that he's done his job, once again knowing what to say to fix him again.

He knows the answer, anyways.

* * *

In the morning, another day starts and Homare is excited to see what it will bring and just how much he'll understand of it.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos n feedback always appreciated! <3 this isnt art but i am passionate about arisu n want to know if u are, too! u////u
> 
> a3 took over my LIFE. enstars d*ed (been buyin omanjuu 2 fill da void) n hypmic hiatus til game n manga tl if ever ;w;  
> please continue fillin this tag. found family game!!!! a3 deserves so, so much!!! <3
> 
> itaru.
> 
> twitter: opanimeboyy


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